Bulk Renaming Photos

It's been a while since I've shared some of my blog-fu and a recent shout-out I received on Must Contain Minis reminded me that these help the community. So, I'm happy to write another post that might assist others to share their knowledge with the community.

The tool I want to look at today is called Bulk Rename Utility and no, this is an unsolicited review. Just happens to be a product I quite like. Essentially, the issue arises when I'm taking photos of a tutorial or project over an extended time and I'm using multiple cameras to do so - typically the camera on my phone and my nice digital camera, complicated further if my personal phone is almost out of juice and I'm using the camera on my work phone. So I end up with up to 3 file naming systems that my photos are saved in which are far from alphabetical on the whole.

Bulk Rename Utility will allow you to rename a folder worth of files in an instant based on certain criteria - in this case, the date the photo was taken.

Downloading

Just navigate to their website and get the software from their Download page.

Setup

Once installed, you'll need to configure the settings.

FYI, once you have it setup, there's a save/load settings option under the file menu. This way you don't have to set everything up again if you install it on another computer or reinstall your PC.

1. Enable extracting photo data.

Renaming Options > ID3/Exif Data > CHECK Extract Exif Data (Photos)

Note, you need to make sure the date is correct on all the devices you take pictures with. On phones, this is a given, but you'll need to set it on any digital cameras you might use. Get the time as close as possible incase you're switching between devices within a matter of minutes.

2. Renaming Options

There's a bunch you can configure here, the following are just the settings I use.

1. Name - Remove
1. Removes the file name completely
2. Append Folder Name
1. I append the folder name as a Prefix. (Beginning of Filename) This works if the folder you save your project / tutorial photos in is descriptive enough.
3. Auto Date
1. I add the date as a Suffix (End of Filename) From the "Type" dropdown, you'll see I use the "Date Taken" pulled from the photo's EXIF data.
4. Filters
1. Mask for all file types.
2. Check for Files only.
5. Special
1. Change File Timestamps.
   This is totally optional, but I like having the created date match when the photo was taken, instead of when the file was copied to your computer.
   When you check this, you'll get the second prompt pictured below. Set the "Date Created" to "Date Taken".

Bulk Rename Files

Once you have everything configured, you can select all the files in the folder, or just the ones you want to rename. (Standard CTRL click to select additional files, SHIFT click to select a whole list and CTRL + SHIFT click to select addition list of files.)

Then, click the [RENAME] button

You'll end up with something like pictured below, with photos from different sources named similarly.

The way I work, I'll then create a folder called "source" and move all the named original files there, before I start editing, cropping, merging, photo manipulating, etc.